


High School Years

by RamblingPug



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Eremika - Freeform, Eremika Week, F/M, Growing Up, High School AU, Implied Sexual Content, Teen Problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 21:44:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4977622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RamblingPug/pseuds/RamblingPug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A glimpse of Eren and Mikasa (and of course, the blonde bae) through their high school years, fumbling around each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	High School Years

It was the last day of Summer vacation, and for this bunch of dorky fourteen year olds, it meant snuggling up in front of Armin's fireplace with the PlayStation on, engrossed in the latest Need For Speed.

"... Which one? Undercover?"

"Let's play Most Wanted! That chick in the black skirt is _smoking_ hot."

Mikasa's jaw twitched at Eren's comment.

"It doesn't matter," she said calmly, because _of course_ she doesn't care how _hot_ Eren thinks that _chick_ withthe boobs-as-big-as-her-head is, "I'm going to kick your ass anyway."

"Oh yeah?" Eren sat up straight, throwing Mikasa a glare as if she had just called his own, feeble, fourteen year old manhood into question. "Well, let's see what you've got then."

Armin sighed. "... There's no need to make this personal..." Except things were always a little too personal between them, hot one minute cold the next, and Armin, quite honestly, had gotten used to it.

Besides, there was no use in Eren flaring up at her, she was right; she _would_ kick his assand they didn't need a fortune teller to tell them so.

Armin wonders why he hadn't learnt this in the past few years of humiliation.

Twenty laps later, and a mortifying 1.10 minute lead for Mikasa, Eren takes his fury out on the controller.

"Goddammit Mikasa, how do you _always_ win?!"

Mikasa looks straight ahead, seemingly nonchalant about the whole thing, but Armin is wise to the small smug smile playing on her lips.  

"You're amazing," Eren says with a soft chuckle, resigned, patting her affectionately on the shoulder.

And Mikasa's smile widens underneath her bangs.

...

Later, when Eren has dozed off, and it's just Armin and Mikasa, watching a documentary on an old abandoned ruin, Mikasa speaks up.

"...Hey, Armin?"

"Mmm," he responds distractedly, engrossed in the show like other boys his age would be, in secret videos they watch in incognito mode.

"What exactly do boys mean when they say a girl is 'hot'?"

"... I don't know. The same things girls mean, I guess."

"Does it mean," she hesitates because she has a faint suspicion she probably sounds _stupid_ ," that that's the kind of girl they'll fall in love with...?"

Armin, half-listening, half-focussed on the legend of the vanishing temple that they were now showing on Discovery, nods in assent.

"... Yeah, something like that."

Mikasa gulps, her head spinning back to something a friend once told her back in grade school.

_"My dad says when you grow up you'll meet someone you'll want to spend the rest of your life with," her friend had told her, as though she had just learnt something important, "he says it's called 'falling in love'."_

Mikasa had found it strange at the time, because she was far from grown up, and she knew little about the concept of love.

But for some reason, all she could think was that she had already found Eren.

"Oh," she says, her voice squeaking a little abnormally, "... Right... I'm going to bed now."

She returned a few minutes later with three pillows and blankets, and covered Eren, tucking him in to make sure his feet were covered.

It was only after Armin's documentary was over, that he properly thought about what Mikasa was asking him.

And he smacked his head when the obviousness of her queries seeped in.

He looked down at her, sleeping on her side, her fingers twined with Eren's.

"Idiot," he whispered, shaking his head, " _This_ is what love is."

...

Freshmen year was different, exciting at times, unnerving at others. But they finally found the opportunity to explore their interests.

Eren made his way to his English class, barely on time, when he heard whispers from behind him.

"... I heard Mikasa's joining the tennis club..."

"... Who's Mikasa?"

"... That girl I showed you in the morning, Idiot! The one with the beautiful hair..."

Eren spun around at the sound of these voices, irritated for some reason, his fist suddenly itching for some action.

"What's your name?" he asked the dirty brown haired boy behind him.

The boy responded with an equal hatred, annoyed at being randomly questioned, "What's your _problem?_ "

...

"I heard you joined the tennis club?" He asks as they walk back home. He elects not to mention the source of this information, because he is still slightly mystified with his own reaction.

"Yeah," she tells him, smiling, "I met some pretty cool people." And for Mikasa it meant someone capable, someone who was actually worthy of a challenge.

_Like Jean?_ he wants to ask, but doesn't because - _what the fuck is wrong with him today?!_

"... How are you going to play with all this hair all over your face?" He musses it up on purpose, grinning when the annoyed reaction he'd wanted materializes. "You should cut it."

She hadn't thought of that. Idly, she wonders if he likes it, prefers women with shorter hair.

"You think so?" She asks, fighting a blush, peeking at him through her bangs. "Will you do it for me?"

...

Sophomore year is a little confusing because problems they never thought would be problems suddenly seemed to be a big deal.

Sasha walked fast, humming to herself as she looked for Maple Avenue. Scanning the houses on the left, she spotted the pleasant yellow one, with the basketball hoop on the side.

Walking up the three steps that Mikasa had clearly mentioned in her description of the house - Mikasa _never_ missed a detail - she took a second to wonder if maybe Mikasa had a hot basketball-player brother that she never mentioned.

The door opened almost as soon as she rang the bell, with Mikasa standing there, fresh from the shower, toweling her hair dry.

"Blueberry muffins straight from the oven," Sasha claims excitedly, opening her basket proudly on the kitchen counter.

"It smells great," Mikasa says earnestly, taking a whiff. She sinks into it, and it's heavenly, the perfect amount of sweet and soft, melting in her mouth.  

"I smell something delicious," comes a voice from behind, reaching around Mikasa to grab a muffin.

"Oh hey, Sasha made muffins. You're gonna love em."

"... Mm, sho good! Shasha theesh are amazing!" Eren says excitedly, mouth full of muffin.

The muffin in Sasha's hand drops to the floor, her jaw dropping with it.

_Eren stood next to Mikasa, in her kitchen, eating her food - Bare-chested - like it was the most natural thing in the world! At a time when boys and girls still blushed to talk to each other, these two had already...!_

"Um," Eren swallows the last bit of the muffin, worried that Sasha's face had started to turn just the tiniest tinge of blue, "Are you okay?"

She averted her eyes to the floor immediately, her face hot, and mumbled, "You'renotwearingashirt."

"... What?"

Mikasa looked from her to him, and when she finally deciphered her friend's incoherent babbling she laughed. "Eren," she giggled, swatting his shoulder playfully, because this was something so normal it didn't bother her in the least anymore, "Could you please go put on a t-shirt?"

...

"... Is it true?"

Eren sighed, shutting the history book he was pretending to read. "What do you want, Connie?"

Connie scooted closer to him, whispering theatrically even though the librarian was pointedly glaring at them, "Is it true about you and Mikasa?"

Honestly, he was glad at least someone came and confronted him about it. It had been a week and the whispers of him and her _still_ hadn't let up, people still looked at him weird, and some guys who thought they were really funny still came up to ask him what flavour condoms he buys.

The first time he was faced with this question, his face was literally the colour of a strawberry and his subsequent sputtering of a denial hadn't been enough to quell their suspicions.

Ever since Sasha had come over to their house that day, a completely contorted version of the truth floated around the halls.

The poor girl meant well, but discretion wasn't really one of her strong points.  

"So you're seeing her?" Connie asked, "Mikasa, I mean."

"No Connie," - Eren made sure to enunciate this as slowly as possible - "I am _not_ seeing her."

"So that means... You're not sleeping with her?"

He should be used to this accusation by now, but he's not. The very idea of this situation makes his face flame red, and his skin grow a little too hot. "Of course not!" He hissed vehemently, only to be reprimanded by the librarian with a swift point to the 'Maintain Silence' sign.

"We just... Live together, that's all."

There was no use explaining the circumstances behind it, it was too long and too painful, and besides, it was Mikasa's secret to share... Not his.

"So she's not your girlfriend?" Connie asks, still trying to wrap his head around the concept that was Eren and Mikasa.

Eren shook his head.

"So is she like, your sister or something?"

"No!" And for some reason this disaffirmation comes out stronger than the previous.

"No," Eren says again, slowly, because that was _completely_ not it, "She's not my anything... She's just..." _Mine,_ is the word that springs to his mind out of nowhere, unbidden, loud, wanting to put a stop to all this bull shit.

But he elects not to say it.

"... She's family."

...

Junior year is difficult, especially for Mikasa, because it turns out Eren's got a roving eye and in between being student council president and president of the tennis club, she doesn't really have the time to give a fuck, but she _does._

It becomes especially hard when Eren decides to test the dating scene, because everything's happening right in front of her.

"... Hey, I'm stuck with an assignment tonight," she hollers from her room, "Is it alright if we just order pizza?" Because it was her turn to make dinner tonight, and she still has a long, long way to go with her essay.

Eren doesn't reply, so she sticks her head into his room.

She is met with the sight of him - all 6 feet and 1 inch of him - dressed up in a _neatly ironed_ black shirt and jeans, with his hair _combed_ tidily to the left... And is that _perfume_ he has on?

"Are you... Going out somewhere?"

"Yeah, I," - he took a deep breath and assessed himself in the mirror once more, "I have a date."

"... A date?"

She doesn't know why the words sting her mouth, hurting as they escape her lips.

"Yeah," he says, turning to look at her, kind of sheepish, "You know Krista right? From the cheer team?"

His eyes were bright, so big and clear with his hair now out of the way, that she could _see_ the excitement vibrant in his verdant hues.

"Well," he mumbles, visibly nervous, "Do I look okay?"

With a lump in her throat, she reaches up to tousle his carefully done hair, just enough to make his hair fall into his eyes.

"Hey," -

\- "There," she whispers, looking up at him, trying her level best to keep the threatening tears in check, "You look _perfect_."

...

"Just give me a few minutes, Armin," she says, unlocking the house door, "I'll just get changed up and then we can," -

She is interrupted by a slight giggle, a husky murmur that resounds through the empty house and a breathy moan of the same name that has been pulling at her heartstrings for years now.

"Actually," she says, shutting the door behind her sharply, her voice high and so definitely fake that it hurts even Armin to see the heartbreak written so clearly over her face, "I think I'm good to go."

...

The start of senior year heralds more changes, but Mikasa has changed so much herself, that she is unable to recognize when things revert to old times.

Number-crunching has always been easy for her, so it isn't a surprise that the job of wrapping up the accounts for the student council usually fell into her lap.

"Need any help?" a familiar voice interrupts one day, when she is busy with this task.

She startles out of her concentration, because this is the first time she's ever seen Eren set foot into the student council office.

"... You suck at math, Eren."

He made a face and laughed. "Can't argue with that."

He sat there doing nothing, presumably just looking at her, probably with the intention of not disturbing her, but it was Eren, and _everything_ he did distracted her.

"Do you need something?"

"Well," he said, shy for some reason, "I thought maybe we could go have ice cream or something?"

She just stared at him. They hadn't hung out after school since... Well since, he had gotten a girlfriend basically.

But she didn't question him.

"Sure," she said, hiding the slight tremor of hope under her bangs, "Let me just finish up with this and then we'll go."

...

"Two scoops of black currant and one butterscotch, please," he tells the cashier, when they reach their favorite ice cream parlor.

She frowns. "You didn't even ask me what I wanted."

He looks at her, confused. "You've _always_ ordered two scoops of black currant, every time, ever since we were nine years," -

\- "That's _not_ the point, Eren."

Because doesn't he know? She isn't just someone who's always going to be waiting, sitting there by the side, constant, never changing, never getting over her stupid, childish interests.

"...You can't just assume that I'm going to like the same things forever."

...

She ends up taking the black currant after all. It was just too tempting, sitting there in its waffle cone, purple and too pretty to pass up, just to prove a point.

"So," she says, getting to the point because the uncertainty was _killing_ her, "how come you're not hanging out with Krista?"

He looks at her surprised, like it was amazing how she could possibly harbour that notion because - "... We broke up. Last week."

Her ears perked up, guilty with the happiness she was feeling but still torn because Eren could have been heartbroken, _miserable,_ right in the room beside her’s and she didn't even know about it.

"... Are you okay?"

He smiles, that disarming, completely open smile of his, that gets her every time. "Yeah... I guess."

She waits to see if there's any lingering sadness but there doesn't seem to be any, so she believes him.

"Besides, I felt like I hardly got to see you anymore."

She didn't say anything because it was true, anytime she saw him, he was with her, and it had seemed like he was oblivious to everyone else.

He reaches a hand out to caress her hair. "... Has it grown longer?"

It's just Eren, and this is so natural, him and her, him touching her innocently, but she still blushes furiously.

"... You look pretty, Mikasa."

And just like that she felt like she was taken back a couple of years when she was still a kid, naive and stupid, thinking that if it really was love, it _had_ to be two-sided.

...

There's only a few months of school life left, and honestly Mikasa's fed up of overworking herself to the point where even her straight A's have straight A's.

"... Woah," - Eren lets out a low whistle - "Where are _you_ going?"

Mikasa threw him a look of annoyance. "To your party, remember? _You_ invited me."

"... I _always_ invite you," he points out, still taking in the sight of her, "You're always too busy to actually show up."

_"_ Well I'm coming tonight. And I'm dragging Armin with me," she mutters, fumbling with the knot of her halter top. "Help me with this, please?"

Eren chuckled, realizing that Mikasa was probably as unused to dressing up as he was to seeing her like this.

His eyes traced the curve the of her body, now clearly outlined by her form fitting jeans, her toned legs looking even longer in her heels.

Mikasa noticed Eren sizing her up and misinterpreted it completely. "What?" She asks, nervously, "Is it too much?"

"No," he says, quick to dispel that notion, because God forbid she change back into one of her sweatshirts again, "It's just," - he sounded just as surprised as he felt - "You look pretty amazing."

...

"... Um, Mikasa," Armin stutters a little, the way he does when he's trying to see sense and he knows there's no use trying to make his friends see the same, "I'm pretty sure the legal drinking age is twenty-one..."

He watches as she pours out two glasses, one for her and the other for him presumably, because obviously breaking a law wasn't fun alone.

She knows Armin is right - he _always_ is - but she had already spotted Eren in the corner, looking rather friendly with his ex-girlfriend and she needed a distraction. "It's alright Armin," she says dismissively, "Eren does it all the time."

"And that makes everything okay," he mutters sarcastically, taking the glass she handed him with trepidation.

"Okay," Mikasa breathes, looking equally as terrified of the dubious concoction as Armin is, "it's going to taste awful. But we just need to down it okay?"

_Not okay,_ Armin wants to say, but he nods his head anyway.

"Cheers, Armin!"

...

An hour later, and maybe four or five glasses of whatever sick mixture everyone was drinking in that house, Armin and Mikasa, were, for the first time in their lives, _high._

"... Mikasa?"

"Hmm," she replied, her face turned up towards the starry night sky, the breeze blowing gently against her hair.

_Where's Eren?_ Is what he wants to ask, but she looked so happy, so peaceful, he decided against interrupting her.

"Have you ever been kissed, Armin?"

He's 17, and the answer is embarrassing _as hell,_ because even though he's thought about it multiple times, with the little blonde girl, the quiet sullen one, whose eyes would meet with his sometimes in the library. "Nah," he mumbles sheepishly, "What about you?"

He already suspected the answer, that in this respect she was just as inexperienced as he was, that despite having a few too many admirers, she had always held back.

"Nope," she says, shaking her head. "It's stupid, don't you think?" She turns towards him, the light of the stars shining in her deep, grey eyes. "We're _seventeen,_ Armin," she whispers, her face suddenly closer to his than he had realised, "don't you think we should know what it's like?"

He could say no, that a first kiss should be something meaningful, that it was a special moment to be shared only with the one you _love_ , but he knows Mikasa wasn't free of those notions herself.

He knows that same four lettered devil was the one that had held her back all this while.

But what _was_ the point of waiting? Because when she was so close, her hair brushing against his cheek, her breath smelt sweet like the berry flavour they had mixed in the alcohol.

And when she finally closed the distance, to place her mouth on his, her lips were the softest thing he could have ever imagined.

Soon, he found himself getting a little braver, because this was Mikasa and they had grown together, his tongue darting out a little to lick on her lower lip.

It was at this point, when her arms had snaked around his neck, that the sound of their names pulled them back to their surroundings.

"... Mikasa?"

Her eyes flew open, her hands retracting back faster than the speed of light.

Eren stood in the doorway to the balcony, a bottle of beer in hand, looking at her more than him, an expression of hurt evident on his features.

Outrage prickled inside Armin, an inexplicable feeling, when he saw the accusatory look in Eren's eyes, as if he had caught them doing something they weren't _supposed_ to be doing.

What stung him even more, was that when he looked at Mikasa, her eyes were downcast, blurry, _guilt_ written all over her face.

...

A month had passed since _that_ night at the party, and Mikasa had apologized to Armin for putting him on the spot.

Things went back to normal after that, because they had been friends for too long to let teenage hormones And a little bit of alcohol complicate things, and the easy comfort between them soon slipped back into place.

Between Armin and Mikasa, that is.

Sitting at the table in Eren's house, the three of them sifted through college applications and essays, proofreading them for the millionth time. "Alright," Mikasa says, getting up, "I'm going to head over to Sasha's house. Because if _someone_ doesn't help that girl with her essay, she isn't going to end up in college."

Mikasa had barely left the street when she realized she'd forgotten her essay on the table and so she runs back to the house.

When she reaches the doorstep, she is stunned into place, when she hears shouting.

"... You kissed her _back.._."

"... And why shouldn't I, Eren, she's an attractive girl..."

"... Goddamit, Armin, you _knew_ how I felt about her..."

Tears stung the corners of her eyes. She'd be an idiot to not know who they were talking about.

And yet, she found it hard to believe.

She turned the key slowly, entering as quietly as possible.

"...How was I supposed to know anything, Eren? How was _she_ supposed to know? How were we supposed to know _anything_ when you were out screwing your stupid cheerleaders..."

"... This and that are different..."

"... How the _fuck_ is it different..."

Mikasa shivers, because in all these years of knowing Armin, she's never heard him him swear, _ever_.

"... It's _Mikasa_ ," he whispers, and it makes her heart hurt just a little bit even he says her name like that, _possessive_ , "she's different, Armin. How is a loser like me ever supposed to be good for her...?"

"... I don't know either, but figure it out because you sure as hell can't handle the idea of anyone else with her."

She can hear Armin sigh from behind the wall where she's hiding, tired and resigned.

"You can come out now, Mikasa. I know you're there."

She almost jumped out of her skin. She should've known  Armin was too sharp to not notice the creaking of the door knob.

"... Mikasa?!" Eren almost squeaks, in a distinctly _un_ manly fashion, his face even redder than hers, unable to look her in the eye.

"I'm sick of this..." Armin says firmly, gathering his things, having finished with his quota of confrontation for the day, "of you two pulling me into your stupid game of hide-and-seek, just so that you can hide behind _me_ whenever you want."

Because that's all it ultimately was, just an excuse to keep running away from each other, hiding even though the other was right in front of them.

"...Both of you both better sort your shit out before I see you at school tomorrow."

...

It was strange, but sometimes being with Armin felt like being reprimanded by her mother.

"Well," Eren asks softly, slumping against the wall, "how much of that did you hear?"

_You said you_ felt _something about me_ , is what she wants to say, but Mikasa isn't all that courageous either.

"... I heard you being a total asshole to Armin."

He snorted, "Taking his side, again?"

She smiles slightly, grateful to feel the tension dissolve at least a little bit.

"Y-you," - Mikasa can't recall herself stuttering _ever_ \- "you said I was _different_." She looks down, unable to look into the honesty of his grassy eyes. "... Did you mean it?"

"Yeah," he says hoarsely, not knowing what else to say, especially when she had already heard too much just a few minutes ago.

"Idiot," she whispers, not knowing why tears were streaming down her cheeks, _hating_ how pathetic she sounds, "How the hell were you supposed to be _good_ for me, when you were so busy being with _someone else_?"

Guilt cut through to his core at the sight of her, a complete role reversal from when they were younger - Eren crying like the sore loser he was, after Mikasa beating him one too many times, and Mikasa holding out a chocolate to make peace - and if there were ever a moment when he felt like the lowest of scum, this was it.

"Mikasa," he whispers, cradling her head like it was the most precious thing, pulling her up to look at him, blurred through the haze of her tears, "Don't, please... I'm not worth it."

If only she _could_ stop, stop at least for a moment to tell him that for her, he was worth _everything_.

But she couldn't, there was just too much locked inside, too much hurt and confusion and she couldn't keep it inside anymore.

His lips brushed at the side of her cheeks, lapping at her tears softly. "I wish you'd told me something..."

"How could you _not_ know, Eren?" She whispers, angrily, because everyone else knew. Everyone else could see it as clear as day. He just hadn't noticed _her_.

"... For me, there was never anybody else."

He crushed her to him, letting the tears soak through his shirt, not able to see her anguish anymore. He could tell her the truth, that there wasn't anyone for him either, just distractions, to keep him from the constant burn of jealousy that had him itching to me throw a punch at every guy who looked her way.

He could tell her that this feeling of having her in his arms surpassed anything that he had ever felt before, but she probably wouldn't believe him.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs, into her mouth, tipping her chin up to consume her, his tongue flicking an apology a thousand times over. It seems there were too many things to apologize for, for her tears, for all the misconceptions he had unknowingly caused, for not doing this sooner... And for not being able to _stop_.

...

Bonus :

She had always thought holding hands was an overrated concept of love, practiced only by idiots who thrived on the social validation of their relationship.

But this impression changed the next morning, when Eren finished tying up his laces, and upon standing up, kissed her sweetly on the mouth, took her hand in his, murmuring, "Shall we go?" And led her promptly out the door.

Mikasa didn't know what to make of this newfound chivalry, but the feeling of him close to her, of his fingers tangled with hers, made her flush happily.

"... Finally," Armin breathed, capturing them in a very _uncharacteristic_ bear hug when he saw them, almost collapsing against his best friends in relief. "If you two hadn't figured it out after _yesterday's_ showdown, I would've _really_ given up."

"... But maybe," he winks, pushing aside Mikasa's hair from her neck, and sure enough the grand revealing showcased a pretty, purpling bruise right at her nape. "You should practice a little discretion?"

_-Fin-_

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhhh, what a bunch of dorks. <3
> 
> Comments and criticism are much appreciated, and if you leave them at ramblingpug.tumblr.com , I will love you for it.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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